Category: Crafts

Somewhere between having 2 kids and becoming a stay at home mom, I became a coffee drinker. I managed to make it through 4 years of university without touching a cup of coffee, but the sleepless nights with newborns and long days with toddlers quickly turned it into my preferred form of caffeine.

Are you looking for a fun and imaginative gift for the young kids on your gift giving list? This Gingerbread Play-dough Cookie Making Kit is sure to spark creativity and add extra cheer this holiday season. It is quick and easy to put together with my printable labels and a bit of cooking to mix up the gingerbread scented dough.

Even though I knew I would be spending way too much time making our Pokémon themed pumpkins this week, I didn’t want my daughter to feel completely left out. When I saw a bag of tiny white pumpkins at the grocery store, I knew right away that they would make the perfect wheels for a quick and easy Cinderella Pumpkin Carriage.

We have carved our pumpkins a bit early this year thanks to a Pumpkin Carving contest at my son’s elementary school this week. Since I was tasked with running the contest, I knew I had to come up with something awesome for our submission.

What better place to go for ideas then your children? When I asked my 6 year old what kind of pumpkin he would like, he quickly suggested Pokémon as our theme. Since his favourite character is Eevee, it was no surprise when he asked that I recreate one in pumpkin. And you can’t have a Pokémon without a Pokeball so my husband also suggested we find some small pumpkins to transform into Pokeballs.

My Eevee was actually fairly simple to carve and create using 3 pumpkins. I found a great white pumpkin that I knew would work great as Eevee’s fur collar and found a smaller orange pumpkin to stack on top as his head. I then purchased an additional oval shaped pumpkin I could use to cut out his long pointy ears.

For the Pokeball’s, I found these great little round white pumpkins that I knew would work perfect with a bit of paint. I was intended to make the traditional red and white ball, but my son requested that I also make an Ultraball and a Masterball. Who knew there were so many different types?!

I made a template to carve out each of the pumpkins to look like the balls were opening up and a flash of light was coming out like in the show/game. I then painted their tops with acrylic paint and finished them off with a ring of black electrical tape and a black and white paper circle glued to the center. For the ultraball, I added yellow electrical tape for the stripes and used a pink sheet of foam and white duct tape for the finishing details on the Masterball. Since the pumpkins were already white, I was able to leave the bottom portions as is.

I think the finished pokeballs look awesome both on their own and lit up, and are the perfect complement to our Eevee.

I usually like to theme our Halloween pumpkins to the kids costumes, just like my Olaf and BB8 pumpkins from last year, but this year I really struggled to come up with anything to go with the kids Batman and Batgirl costumes. I was apprehensive when my son suggested Eevee and I was unable to find any inspiration online, but the actual carving of the face was pretty simple. I am happy with the final result and hopefully my pumpkin will help inspire the other Eevee fans out there!

I am not sure my carved pumpkins will survive until Halloween night, but we did end up winning the Halloween carving contest (I promise it wasn’t rigged). Watching my son race around the kitchen island in excitement after I tallied up the votes and told him we had won was enough to make it all worth spending my entire Wednesday evening carving and painting pumpkins!

For our ice cream social this year, I decided to go with a Peanuts theme and wanted matching themed costumes to get a cute photo of my kids for the invitation. Since seeing the Peanuts Movie way back in the winter, I have had it in my mind that my son would make a great Charlie Brown and his blonde haired little sister would be the perfect Sally. Continue reading “Peanuts DIY Kids Costumes”→

Bus Driver Appreciation day was celebrated in our school district in April and I came up with these quick little gifts to thank each of my son’s bus drivers for their hard work all year. Now that it is the end of the school year, I thought I would share in case anyone is looking for a last minute gift idea for the bus driver’s, teachers, or other school support staff in your child’s life. Continue reading “Hail to the Bus Driver”→

I loved dying Easter Eggs as a kid, but I have not kept up the tradition with my own kids since no one in our house is particularly fond of hard boiled eggs. We have tried the plastic ones meant for dying and decorating, but they take an awfully long time to absorb the dye and don’t look near as good as a real egg. Continue reading “Easter Egg Decorating with Rice Krispie Treats”→